The form and amount of working capital components vary over the operating cycle. It would be hard to
get the amounts of the components used in operations for an operating cycle. Hence the working capital
management efficiency is measured in terms of the “days of working capital” (DWC). DWC value is
based on the dollar amount in each of equally weighted receivable, inventory and payable accounts. The
DWC represents the time period between purchases of materials on account from suppliers until the sale
of finished product to the customer, the collection of the receivables, and payment receipts. Thus it
reflects the company’s ability to finance its core operations with vendor credit.
The firm’s profitability is measured using the operating income plus depreciation related to total
assets (IA). This measure is indicator of the raw earning power of the firm’s assets. Another profitability
measure used for this analysis is the operating income plus depreciation related to the sales (IS). This
indicates the profit margin on sales. To measure the liquidity of the firm the cash conversion efficiency
(CCE) and current ratio (CR) are used. The CCE is the cash flow generated from operating activities
related to the sales. The formulae for calculating these values are given in the following Table 1.